Frequently asked questions
Wastes in compost piles, bins and tumblers smell rotten when conditions turn anaerobic after running out of oxygen. The stench of rot is preventable - mix or turn these wastes regularly to bring in oxygen.
Bioverter automatically aerates your wastes with controlled airflow, and by design prevents any problems or odours caused by a lack of oxygen.
Undesirable visitors are attracted by smell - it may be faint or even undetectable by you.
The cause may be inappropriate selection of waste - or a lack of proper aeration, if you are not using Bioverter as your compost system.
Bioverter’s bespoke design ensures the aeration needs of kitchen scraps are fully met, and as a result, avoids problems with pests and pets. It has been used trouble-free in Melbourne, Australia for several years without any external protectors.
It is possible to add worms to produce farmed (red and tiger) worm castings.
However, we prefer to break down wastes faster with compost microbes in Bioverter, and then use the harvested solids to cultivate free-range earthworms in the garden for a range of rewards. Earthworms naturally improve the soil as they burrow deep in your garden. They also produce worm casts.
You need the right amounts of two macronutrients, carbon and nitrogen, in your mix of waste to make good compost.
Kitchen scraps (i.e. food waste) are generated routinely and are a great source of nitrogen-rich goodness.
Paper is rich in carbon. You can use paper waste such as newspaper and plain paper to counterbalance the nitrogen in food scraps.
You can also reuse disposable paper products such as paper towels (even soiled with food residue) and toilet paper tubes - they are great carbon sources and don’t need to end up in landfill.
Vegetable scraps and coffee grounds are everyday wastes that are nutritionally too rich in nitrogen to compost well on their own - they can cause an infestation of compost flies and/or pungent smell.
Nutrition balance can be achieved by adding carbon-rich wastes such as fruits and starchy food (e.g. bread, pasta, noodles and rice).
Paper waste is an alternative. It is very rich in carbon, so you add only a small amount to counterbalance the nitrogen in veggie scraps.
Start on the path to success by ensuring your mix of wastes are in the sweet spot where nutrition and moisture are in balance.
Uncoated paper produced using present-day paper making methods is free of impurities (i.e. chlorine) that can affect your soil.
Plain paper and newspaper can be returned to soil as compost - most newspapers are printed with vegetable-based ink.
Avoid using heavily coloured and glossy paper in your compost. Put this paper in your recycle bin.
Paper towels and napkins are fine to compost when used to wipe up organic residues like food spills. Exclude any paper towel with cleaning product on it.
Butchers paper, brown paper bags, some of the wrappings from takeaway foods are often great to compost – as long as they have not been treated with a greaseproof coating. Do the olive oil test to check: place a drop of olive oil on the paper – if it absorbs the oil, it can be composted. If the oil sits in a bead, don’t use it.
Bioverter is insulated to help keep the inside temperature high and shorten the time to break down your wastes. However, climatic conditions can affect it.
In an area with cold nights, giving your Bioverter some sunshine allows its black base to collect solar energy to heat your wastes.
In an area with very hot days, using potted plants or other barriers to shade Bioverter’s black base can help slow the evaporation of compost juice.
In an area with hot dry air, adding one or two cups of water can help to rehydrate your materials before harvesting compost juice the next day.
In practice, we find the best place for Bioverter is somewhere easy to access from the kitchen!
Bioverter contains only one type of plastic - the durable and recyclable polypropylene. Its base section is made out of normal polypropylene. A foam variant is used to insulate its upper portion and provide a temperature controlled environment.
Several Bioverter parts are manufactured from recycled polypropylene with a minimum of 1kg recycled plastic used per unit.
Polypropylene is considered completely food safe - ice cream and yoghurt are also sold in polypropylene containers, so no need to worry about plastic contamination or leaching.
Bioverter is is UV protected to ensure longevity.
Bioverter is designed as an easy-to-use system - simply put wastes in at the top and your output flows out at the bottom. It is equipped to provide a controlled environment for compost microbes to break down wastes fast, without needing you to supply more oxygen by mixing or turning the wastes.
Another distinctive feature is the gradual descent of all waste matter, pulled down by gravity. This creates space to add fresh waste 2 or more times every week, enabling Bioverter to work as a continuous system.
Each lot of added waste breaks down progressively during its descent, and turns into sticky (immature) compost by the time it reaches the collection area.
Your harvest won’t attract pests or pets. Importantly, it is ready to be matured away from Bioverter, e.g. by resting somewhere sheltered in your garden.
An added bonus is a second output - compost juice. It can be harvested as often as you like to water plants immediately after dilution.
The Bioverter unit is 90cm tall with a square 38cm x 38cm base - almost the size of a small wheelie bin.
It is designed to be compact and handy for households with limited space or no garden, but produces a steady output of compost soil and juice to support larger gardens.
Bioverter can accommodate compostable wastes generated by households of between 1-4 occupants.
Scientific trials were conducted as we refined our product over many seasons in our headquarters in Melbourne, Australia. The waste level in Bioverter has been designed to drop as they biodegrade and contract in size, creating space for new additions. This efficient use of space means that best results come from regular inputs of small amounts of waste.
Composting is the acceleration of a natural microbial process which returns nutrients to the soil. It occurs in two stages.
The first is the breakdown stage. A succession of microbial groups break organic matter down into smaller and smaller fragments. Due to our bespoke design, this stage is sped up inside the controlled Bioverter environment, shortening the time taken to release nutrients and water from compostable wastes. The resulting output is nutrient dense compost soil and juice.
The workhorses of this first stage are mesophilic microbes. They grow best in stable, moderate temperatures, neither too hot nor too cold. Conditions are created in Bioverter for them to flourish and boost composting.
A short hot phase involving heat loving thermophilic microbes is seen as a part of composting, but high temperatures are very difficult to achieve with small scale home composting. It isn’t needed to destroy weed seeds and pathogens if you don’t put in seeded weeds, diseased plants or faeces.
The final maturation stage transforms nutrients into a form which plants can use. It takes time and involves another mix of microbes with different growing conditions. The composting process is incomplete without this second stage.
Compost maturation is often overlooked. This means missing out on an even higher value output - a soil superfood. For the best outcomes, refer to our simple maturation suggestion in Composting Tips.
Composting unlocks nutrients in your wastes for reuse. With the right system for your wastes and adherence to composting procedures, you can turn wastes into nutrient-rich compost soil. How useful is it?
Compost soil can be used conveniently as a top dressing. Spread it around your plants or in a compost pop-up, and nutrients will work their way to plant roots. This is similar to fallen plant matter decaying on the ground in nature, eventually becoming part of the soil.
To transform compost soil into a superior and harvestable end-product, leave it in a suitable setting to rest and mature. Compost maturation occurs naturally but takes time. It can’t be hurried. Be patient and your reward is aged or mature compost which is a soil superfood. You can plant directly in mature compost blended with soil or potting mix.
Mature compost improves the health of soil in many ways. It is nutrient dense and spongy, with an ability to release its nutrients slowly. Its capacity to retain moisture allows you to water less often in summer.
It also gives soil a crumbly texture, allowing freer flow of water and air in the loosened soil. Roots can grow easier. Drainage is better, reducing the potential for soil erosion.
Biologically, the soil is made more productive by mature compost. Its organic content serves as sustenance for many and varied soil inhabitants. Boosting beneficial microbial activities can suppress soil-borne and other plant diseases, i.e. protect your plants.
The optimal environment mature compost brings to soil reduces the need for pesticides and fertilisers. With so many positive benefits available to support plant growth, mature compost is the superfood which can help your garden reach its full potential.
A lot of compostable wastes are generated routinely at home. These are organic matter which turn naturally into compost with lots of oxygen, but produces methane when buried in landfill without air. They include vegetables, fruits, pasta, bread, coffee grounds, cut flowers, non-glossy paper and plant trimmings.
Organic matter can be recycled into compost containing humus and returned to the earth. The process is quicker for some (e.g. leafy vegetables and coffee grounds) than for others (e.g. paper towel and tip prunings). Successful composting requires the right relative amounts of both sorts.
The more firm, rigid or hard an organic material, the longer it will take to break down. So for anything woody – twigs, sticks, bits of bark – they will break down eventually but will pass through the Bioverter system largely unchanged due to the relatively short transit time.
Humus is a carbon-rich substance which doesn’t release its carbon to the atmosphere for a very long time if left undisturbed in soil. Not only is it good for your soil, it is a natural store of carbon which can be viewed as an effective means to reduce your carbon footprint and a practical response to climate change.
In nature, humus forms very slowly when dead plant and animal matter decay on the ground. It is the stable end-product of nature’s recycling process which returns carbon to earth.
Healthy soil is alive with microscopic organisms which feed on organic matter and decrease soil carbon. Without a return of carbon, soil fertility declines. A constant input of decayed organic matter can replenish, or even increase the amount of carbon in soil.
Composting can replicate and expedite returning humus to garden soil. To produce more humus, first turn nutrient-rich waste such as kitchen scraps into compost soil with Bioverter, then let it mature into dark, crumbly soil superfood containing humus.
Non-organics should not be recycled with organic matter by composting. This includes all kinds of plastic and plastic-coated products, styrofoam and bioplastics - even though bioplastics are identified as biodegradable.
Other general compost no-nos include oil, fat, grease, bones, diseased plants, seeded weeds, dog and cat poo. They’ll take a very long time to break down or produce undesirable outcomes. However, light oil stains on paper towels and paper bags are acceptable.
Don’t recycle wastes your compost system is ill-equiped to handle. Food high in protein (meat, poultry, fish and diary products) are excluded from common systems like compost bins, tumblers and worm farms, because these materials might emit odours and attract rats. However, Bioverter can be used to compost protein-rich scraps without these issues provided they are cut into tiny bits and spread thinly amongst wastes low in protein.
Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere act like an invisible blanket, raising global temperatures by trapping heat from the sun. A well known culprit is carbon dioxide. A more damaging gas is methane, which is produced when compostable wastes are buried in landfill as rubbish.
We stop producing methane when we reuse rather than landfill compostable waste. Recycling lowers local greenhouse emission.
If we work together to reuse more wastes at home, we can also cut transport emission by collecting and hauling less rubbish for disposal.
Reusing wastes reduces our impact on the environment. If done at home by composting, valuable nutrients are recovered for your plants and garden.